Halloween Clean-Up Guide

Is Your Car A Rotting Corpse This Morning?

shaving cream

What to expect in the morning

First thing in the morning, you step outside to find the marshmallow man from Ghostbusters sitting in your driveway. Upon closer inspection, you quickly realize that it’s actually your car covered in shaving cream. And not just fluffy, bubbly, just-sprayed-on shaving cream — we’re talking solid, caked-on, been-sitting-there-all-night-fermenting-on-your-paint-surface shaving cream.

Gillette commercials may never look the same again, but don’t panic: The shaving cream hasn’t permanently formed a shell around your car. However, shaving cream does contain chemicals, meaning that different brands may cause discoloration to your paint surface and could even eat away at the clear coat in a worst-case scenario. Although shaving cream can be corrosive if left on long enough — we’re talking days at a time — if you deal with the situation at hand immediately and use the correct products, you can quickly melt the foamy mess away and have your car back to its lustrous self.

How to deal with it

The first thing that must be addressed with shaving cream is wetting the substance so it can be rinsed off without scraping at it. Don’t approach your car like a scab that needs to be picked — it will only promote more damage to the surface, and you could possibly be causing more harm than good. So, just as before, wash the car thoroughly with water, using the water pressure to clear the surface as much as possible.

Once the surface is no longer caked with shaving cream, a gentle all-in-one wash should clear the paint of any residual shaving cream. When doing so, always use a soft-wash mitt or microfiber towel, and make sure you keep the surface wet while washing, just in case there is left-over hardened shaving cream you missed with the first shower.

Recommended products

For this situation, an all-in-one cleaner is your best bet. As there are no hard bits, you don’t have to worry about the paint being chipped from the attack. However, you do want to make sure you remove all traces of the cream because it is a chemical substance with perfumes, dyes and other ingredients that are not meant to be on your car’s surface.

Using a product like Klasse All-In-One (approximately $24.95 for 16.09 oz) allows you to do it all in one step, which is perfect for a pre-work wash when time is of the essence. All-in-ones clean, polish and protect with just one application. And while it is beneficial to wax your car, if you just don’t have the time, these cleaners are definitely the solution.

mini-pumpkins

What to expect in the morning

After a night of strange dreams involving you dodging small grenades in the middle of a war, you’re up and out the door on your way to work only to be greeted by the unthinkable: Those small grenades you thought you’d only dreamed up have become reality and were aimed right at your car. Thankfully, they weren’t of the army brand, but of the vegetable kind: mini pumpkins.

Upon closer inspection, not only have the pumpkins’ flesh and juice dried on your car, but there’s also a good possibility that they have also caused denting to your vehicle. Although pumpkins are known to explode upon impact, that impact has to be quite strong and not all side panels are made to handle such a tough blow.